Half a lifetime ago, I flew from JFK to the Oakland airport with the intention of starting the “Neopsychedelic Wave” — by starting a magazine, a rock band and a political organization of some undetermined nature.Â Now that the world is a gassy utopia full of happy starchildren sucking peace -and-love lollipops on space colonies for all eternity, you can thank me.

Ummm…Â well, so this is a moment of self indulgence and here are a few of my favorite things by me or about me on the web…

The first time I was ever in San Francisco it blew my mind. It was a city of freethinkers and artists who were â€œon the levelâ€ and â€œgot it.â€ Sometimes itâ€™s hard for me to accept that I was born in South Florida. The isolation and alienation was so severe that I literally believed I was another species. In San Francisco, there were crazy people everywhere and it was the utopian dream. For several years I was born again. The freaks were everywhere and I united with my people at last.

So what happened? I gradually started to notice that people in the mass counterculture were as blind as â€œthe sheepâ€ only they were conforming to a different set of social norms. I came up with the term anti-sheep-sheep to describe them. I felt myself longing for the initial alienation of identifying as a mutant and feeling like I was the only one. After all, meeting people like you is a lot more exciting when you feel like you are the only one. The people who truly influenced my life were the few counterculture people who I met in South Florida. They were as isolated and alienated as I was. They felt like they were another species too.

I remember how we would have all these exciting discussions. â€œWhat are we?â€ was the question. Everyone seemed to have their own answer. â€œWe are an alien species that has been put here to study the human race.â€ â€œWe are demons from hell and our job is to eliminate the homo sapien.â€ It seems quite silly to me now but back then it was my inspiration for creating art. It was my job to become a tribal leader. I was going to give â€œwhat are we?â€ the best answer possible.

One of the kids I remember from South Florida created an entire civilization on paper. Since he did not belong in the world of the suburbs he was intent on creating his own world. He showed me a map of his civilization that consisted of a notebook full of beautiful drawings and cryptic messages. â€œThis is where people like us are from,â€ he would tell me. His civilization had its own language consisting of symbols that he personally designed. We took acid together and discussed the possibility of replacing their civilization with our own.

I met some others in Miami. Thor was the metalhead philosopher. He carried a scepter, recited street poetry, and ranted about how nothing around us was real. His mission was to show people that they were living in the matrix, by any means necessary. Jackie was the transgender shaman punk who did not belong on this planet. Her goal was simply to return home so she could be among her own kind. â€œI think you guys are from my planet too,â€ she once whispered to Thor and I. â€œBut what are we?â€

The suburbs were an alienating place but the conversations were the best. It was all about being the few. We had a sacred sense of tribal unity that related to our sheltered and conservative upbringings. We were the ones. In San Francisco people didnâ€™t grow up like us. They didnâ€™t grow up like us in Los Angeles or New York either. In major cities people grew up with the counterculture being a visible part of mainstream culture. They grew up homo sapiens.

I want to make the argument that the counterculture is actually better in the suburbs. The scarcity of artistic and eccentric thought forces people to create their own civilizations. It fosters an intense unity between people who do not fit into the mainstream and creates extreme connections among those on the edge.

In contrast, larger cities force marketers to be â€œon the edgeâ€ so they can appeal to the counterculture demographic. You cannot walk down the street without seeing punks, ravers, goths, or at the very least hipsters. There is an over-the-counterculture element of commercialization that makes being a freethinking mutant another fad. The anti-sheep-sheep run prominent.

If I grew up in San Francisco: surrounded by counterculture models on billboards: always having a record store to hang out in: there is no way I would be the person I am today. Being a natural freethinker I would have rebelled against the dominant liberal culture. I wouldnâ€™t have gotten any tattoos. I wouldnâ€™t have become an alternative musician. I wouldnâ€™t have made my artistic goal to answer the â€œwhat are weâ€ question.

People were always shocked when I told them I was from South Florida. I was way too â€œcoolâ€ to be from the suburbs and obviously must have been from New York or LA. When I met other kids from the suburbs we would talk about how much easier it was to meet people like us in these big cities. We shared a deep knowledge about alienation that people from New York and LA simply couldnâ€™t understand.

Big cities are known for their thriving countercultures but I see counterculture at its peak when it is at its most obscure. When there are only 5 other people in your entire city who â€œget itâ€ you tend to get creative, start a fantastic cult, and plot world domination. It is the sense of alienation that connects people in the suburbs and it is through this alienation that new subcultures, tribes, and species are defined.

Maybe it is better to grow up human. You donâ€™t need to sit alone in your room and wonder why you have been put on the same planet as â€œthe sheep.â€ You donâ€™t need to cry and scream because everybody around you is stuck in the matrix. You donâ€™t need to be the real life protagonist of the movie â€œThey Liveâ€ because nobody will put on their glasses. Still, there is so much that you take for granted because you have been surrounded by counterculture your entire life.

Is big city counterculture actually counterculture? I am not so sure that it is. Listening to GG Allin in New York is great but it does not give you the same rebellious thrill as listening to GG Allin in the suburbs. The more taboo something is the more exciting it becomes. Something cannot, by definition, be both popular and edgy. In South Florida it is edgy to be against war. In San Francisco it is socially enforced to the point of banal conformity.

The counterculture is better in the suburbs. It is through the isolation of “being the only one” that your life changes the moment you meet a brilliant person to make art with. Some of the most eccentric minds in existence are currently stuck in these boring towns of nothing. They have “what are we” conversations until 6 AM and it never gets old. They represent us because the billboards refuse to.

In a ballroom-for-rent at downtown LAâ€™s nostalgic Alexandria Hotel, Anatomy Riot #42 (brainchild of Show Box LA and Lauren McCarthy) debuted all new â€˜machine-inspiredâ€™ performance art. The alleged 42nd installmentâ€™s premise being invisible computing and the future; â€™how aging systems respond to the transposition of more recent technological metaphors and customs onto non-technological environmentsâ€ Â Â Also referred to as â€˜internet aware artâ€™ or â€˜neoanologueâ€™, with Â the [human] body as the reference point, McCarthy posits the revelation of â€œadaptive or misplaced behaviors ordinarily mediated by machines.â€ Â Interesting to note that on my commute into downtown last night, some interchangeable DJ for some local pop FM invited audiences (betwixt a setlist of â€˜Hey Yaâ€™ by Outkast and Adeleâ€™s name-making â€˜Rolling in the Deepâ€™) to call in with their stories of â€˜mis-textingâ€™, or texts accidentally sent to the wrong person.

Will computers ever watch computers play poker?Â Such are the things I wonder about, as I drink a glass of wine at the Mexican joint next door to the performance art venue.

I will soon conjecture about algorithms for anchorites and machine calisthenics, this latter thought occurring as I watch a â€˜warm upâ€™ routine performed by a female handstander against the entire length of the foremost wall in the ballroom venue, where anatomy riot #42 starts almost half an hour behind schedule. Â Subsequent thoughts go as such… had I known theyâ€™d serve drinks here, I wouldnâ€™t have allocated $6+tip at Ensenda, andâ€¦ Iâ€™m one of only 2 blondes here, the other vying to be Debbie Harry; all ancillary females being of the dark, midlengthed persuasion (indie kids).Â All the dudes either wished at some point to be David Byrne; with flocking follicles, affected English accents and laughs like an electrically impeding parrot.Â As a very recent transplant to the performing arts dimension, what do I expect to witness here, tonightâ€¦ and why?

All I know is that a delayed showtime breeds anxiety.Â I smell my stepgrandfatherâ€™s cologne.Â The parrot-laugher/Angloid reveals that heâ€™s also a starfucker, dropping Law and Orderâ€™s Chris Meloniâ€™s nameâ€¦ like anybody cares.Â Is the ambient squealing and external verbal confrontation part of the show?Â What about the delinquent trickle of audience moments after the showâ€™s commencement has been announced, as some dude who looks like Project Runwayâ€™s Mondo walks out onto the staging area and removes a chair to set up a cheap folding table and stacks of perforated-computer paper?Â Iâ€™m trying in vain to follow the java-esque program (I am both dyslexic and discalculic so itâ€™s a task to follow type-typical); nonetheless it appears the show eventuates with a certain hipster disregard for printed order.

OK.Â This must be the performance of Gustavo Cordovaâ€™s â€˜Failure to Print,â€™ as I reflect on what all made the 90â€™s gay; the foremost being performance art involving table-setting.Â Then comes some cryptic note-writing, paper ripping, and primal screaming before Cordova silently implores various audience participants to scribe an original thought by dropping trains of perforated paper at their laps (or in my case, feet).Â But he doesnâ€™t even bother to collect said thoughts once theyâ€™ve been expunged. Â By my count, at least 4 thoughts were thusly born into the universe, never to be rescinded and ostensibly not to be shared; which suits me fine, as Iâ€™m the 2nd unwitting spectator given perforated paper to birth on, and my contribution is (as ever) ruefully narcissistic.

Which brings me to my next conjecture: can and will we compute narcissism into machines?Â Thatâ€™s what Iâ€™m thinking as Mondo dramatically and incrementally scrawlsâ€¦Â DO / YOU / LIKE / THIS / THOUGHT ?Â Of course, I missed the opportunity for a photo op as Mondo climaxes amidst a violent wheel of airborne perforated paper.Â Take yourself of it, you self-involved mong; and claps signal the end of this opening segment.

Now weâ€™re treated to a handicapped (meaning, presumably, that the young woman reciting from a book of Marina Tsvetaevaworks was restricted to limited touching of said book) rendition of the following:

What is this gypsy passion for separation, this
readiness to rush off when we’ve just met?
My head rests in my hands as I
realize, looking into the night

that no one turning over our letters has
yet understood how completely and
how deeply faithless we are, which is
to say: how true we are to ourselves.

I googled that in about 3 seconds with about 5 keywordsâ€¦Â And it is at this part in the show that my thoughts invariably morph into my own unique breed of cynical feminism, as I watch two young women of muted but indisputable sexual appeal (think Quaaludes for hipster androids) act absently â€˜cuteâ€™ for our amusement.Â For our amusement?

All I can muse on is that clearly such â€˜cutiesâ€™ ainâ€™t as developed for survival as the toads, at least per Darwin.Â So whatâ€™s a cutey to do?Â Drunkenly film her hands while operating some large, obsolete machine.Â Iâ€™m more fascinated by what a machine getting moderately stoned would actually look like.Â Would it spout semi-conscious streams of intimate human words while giggling at its handicaps?Â Would a machine inhibit itself for art?

As I try to visualize what the first 41 Anatomy Riot performances were like, the mumbling performers in thefolly before me manage to enunciate LOVE, TENDERNESS, and (curiously in the vein of a recent IEET blog Iâ€™d read) EQUALITY.Â Provocative words as always, until another artfully asymmetric girl (albeit one who looks remarkably like Curtis Von Trapâ€¦ also without a bra) regales us with a stripped-to-its-logic board Dance Dance Revolution routine, white and dark blue shadows on her celtic face: a virginal Viking vixen with sideways stomping agility.Â After her, some guy calling himself Adam (looks like Aubrey de Grey) tells us heâ€™s going to imagine a future where audiences watch some dude sit in a chair for a proclaimed 5 minutes, feet afloat via hover-shoes.Â Â He says that in the future, our minds will already have been blown, therefore thereâ€™ll be no need for the â€œspectacular,â€ and that all thereâ€™ll be is the present time.Â Alas, I have no desire to contemplate the LA hipsterâ€™s future, but Iâ€™m lead to understand that it will exclude clapping (a rule weâ€™re told will prevail in future performance art by LA hipsters).Â I have no time for the modern LA hipster, but Iâ€™m also a misanthrope and a cynic.Â â€œRomantic is boring,â€ Adam tells us, â€œand this next segment is dedicated to Chet Baker.â€Â So he sits, and we sit, feet levitating, mine as good as his, though I get no credit for it (but I feel good about my pilates routine at least).

A cell phone rings an antiquated ring soundâ€¦ is that part of the show or just bad manners?Â And is the Aubrey de Grey style facial shawl supposed to be like looking into the face of our creator?Â Flanked by our cavemen diet and our increased muscle strength, we acknowledge that stillness is our futureâ€¦ stillness, like a sleeping computer in a clap vacuum.Â But this wasnâ€™t my least favorite exhibition.Â That reward goes to a segment titled â€œKristen Lucasâ€ as performed by Justin Streichman and Danielle Furman.Â A cold-reading about an individualâ€™s attempt at self-renewal, a â€œpoetic gestureâ€ where a young woman named Kristen Lucas applies to the courts to have her name changed into the present incarnation of itself.Â Yes, this confuses the luddite legalities because her name will be the same, only benefiting from a time lapse that the law of course cannot definitively discern and therefore cannot understand.Â The audience around me laughed and loved it, but I failed to see the humor in hackneyed spewing of computing synonyms such as â€˜â€reboot,â€ â€˜refresh,â€ â€œupdate,â€ and â€œemptying my cacheâ€â€¦ particularly as said thesaurus-ian Â employments detail a stupid joke about being â€œborn againâ€ comparing it with the majesty of a marriage vow.Â Marriage?Â How is that a forward concept?Â Or am I being punked?

My headâ€™s starting to cramp as the bad actors announces to the supposed bureaucrats that he â€œshould have brought a philosopherâ€ to better defend his argument of the legitimacy of a time span.Â Was Kurzweil not available or were you thinking more a Yogi Bear type philosopher?Â Alright already, the law should let the citizen refresh on his own terms. Thatâ€™s a duh and thatâ€™s also dangerously tempting me into a rant about the current police state of the California province.Â Sidestepping such unpleasantness, Iâ€™m done with this segment (Christ, it was like snorting anti-hydrogen through my ass) and on to my next unfavorite sketch of the eveningâ€¦ and this was almost enough to make me walk out â€” a particularly gargley orgasm as experienced by someone who appeared to be Napoleon Dynamite undergoing immersion via head-mounted display.Â He rubs a microphone along his pants as he watches giggling young women (yes, again) almost undress and then re-dress each other, spinning and then lying on the floor, redirected in incremental allotments along the floor by what I must assume to be program code, only to stand up again and fumble with their flannel, loose-fitted teeâ€™s again, suggestively wheedling further rhythmic bleating from Dynamiteâ€¦ and Iâ€™m left to worry if these people are getting paid more than me to do this?

I depart from downtown LA, where homeless people dance beneath traffic lights, dragging sleeping bags as if they were parachutes, listening to Aciid by Jem.

Incidentally, the Japanese language can be awfully futuristic, no?Â And Iâ€™m reflecting on invisible tattoo drills, getting tattooed seemingly by thin air, and Iâ€™m reflecting on one of the eveningâ€™s performances â€” a dance with a strategically diagonal household appliances and the chick in the bodysuit flapping like a gull to somehow depict a raceâ€¦ but a race against what, machines?Â And will machines be ornithischian based at some point?Â Nanoparticle foragers of inter-dimensional aerodynamics?Â Ms. McCarthy, Anatomy Riot curator, had voiced the terminal plea for humanity to â€œditch [the machines] or make them invisible, because the future is ours and the future is beautiful.â€ Her message must have made quite the dormant impact, for the following desperate

If that was too enigmatic, my apologies, but Iâ€™m translating from an even less palpable consciousness (i.e., my inherently inebriated mind).Â And perhaps thatâ€™s what the internet should maintain about itself, routed within its invisible wires.Â We cannot possibly ditch the machines now without nuclear holocaust, and theyâ€™re becoming more and more transparent.Â I actually just saw a headline on Dailymail.co.uk about transparent airplanes.Â Transparency is it, dude.

So, sorry you progressively luddite hipsters, but pervasive computing is both invisible and here. Weâ€™ll adapt with our boo-boos naturally; but so long as technology doesnâ€™t seek to eradicate our race through seemingly-insightful, nonsensical art that shatters all sense of auditory peace with the grunt of a male orgasm, I’ll take my googled chances.

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